114 



farmer is not half so trying and exhausting as the lighter employ- 

 ments of the pale and nervous merchant, mechanic or professional 

 man. 



Another drawback is the uncertainty of results, v?hich often 

 disheartens the farmer. But is it doing the farming interest jus- 

 tice, not to speak of the greater uncertainty which attends every 

 other occupation ? Should not the history of the last ten years be 

 permitted to utter its testimony ? Look at the statistics of mer- 

 cantile life, manufacturers, the mechanic arts, and what are called 

 the learned professions ; and farming need not shrink from the 

 comparison. 



And so of the alleged unprofitableness of farming, the " hard 

 work and poor pay," that great bug-bear that frightens so many 

 from their propriety. 



Farming demands intelligence in its prosecution. This de- 

 mand is worthy of special consideration from the two facts : — 

 That there is no calling that requires so much careful thought 

 and knowledge ; and the very general tendency to farm tra- 

 ditionally and ignorantly. We can hardly go amiss for illus- 

 trations of this manifest need of intelligence. From the many 

 that sujirgest themselves I select but one. I refer to the deterior- 

 ation of the soil. The remark has been made to one of the older 

 inhabitants of the town, that its farms do not produce so much as 

 formerly. Of course your farming has been so far faulty, that it 

 has consisted too much in taking from our fields the mineral ele- 

 ments of crops without returning an equivalent ; so that, unless 

 this process be arrested, it is only a question of time, Avhen our 

 farms shall be completely exhausted, and, of course, forsaken. I 

 need not say that a prospect so forbidding is well worthy of our 

 attention and solicitude in a social and religious, as well as in a 

 business point of view. Most serious questions are surely involved 

 in this matter. Something must be done or discovered, not 

 simply to keep up our farms to their present condition, but to 

 bring them back to their former fertility. We abound in experi- 

 ments. The press is prolific in its issues upon the various topics 

 involved in the matter of agriculture. And yet I am convinced 

 that very much of our information is superficial and empirical. 

 Our teachers do not grapple with the great problems on which 

 depend not merely the future agriculture, but the future social 

 and religious history of New England. How shall we restore our 

 lands, that are worn out ? How shall we reclaim those that have 

 hitherto lain waste ? 



But how shall these problems be answered ? By the application 

 to agriculture of science, conjoined with careful experiment. The 

 flippant remark is often made, that " there is no help for our woru 

 out fields," that the best, if not the only available resource left us, 

 is to allow them to " grow up to wood." Do those who thus 



